Assignment task:
According to the federal poverty guidelines produced by the US Department of Health and Human Services, a person of one with an annual income of less than 12,880 dollars and a family of four earning less than 26,500 dollars are under the poverty line. Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest poverty rates in the country, and these two states are always neck and neck each year as the poorest states in America. There are multiple reasons why poverty exists in America. America as a whole is one of the top countries for hours worked by an individual; with this being said, one would think that America would have fewer people living in poverty. One big reason is that it is expensive to be poor when you cannot afford a good healthcare policy; some copays, deductibles, medications, etc., are very expensive. Being sick, whether the cold or flu, to cancer, the doctor's bills can be outrageous. If you have to choose between your healths and feeding your family, the person is going to choose to feed their family; this means bills can start going into collections, thus hindering your credit score, which determines what rates on loans and products you can buy or where you can afford to live. Other factors that cause poverty or deep poverty are social inequality, education, wages vs. skills required, and opportunity of employment compared to one's location.
Some factors in the United States healthcare are the worried members of congress who did not want America to become a socialist or communist country. Another factor was that private medicine doctors would have to abide by the law and provide everyone with healthcare. Many presidents, from Roosevelt to Johnson, tried to implement better healthcare reform. One thing that Johnson was able to do was pass Medicare and Medicaid, allowing assistance for seniors and the disabled. Finally, President Obama was able to pass the Affordable Care Act, which allowed citizens that could not get healthcare through their employment to obtain coverage from a private provider. However, although it is called the Affordable Care Act, this did not mean it didn't come with extreme costs. A yearly deductible can be well over 8,000 dollars for some. Once the act was in place, this also meant that at the end of the year, when filing taxes, those who did not get healthcare coverage would be penalized. This making people choose between high deductibles or a fine, neither of which are good options.